6 Days Until Game of Thrones! Let’s Talk Hair!

Next Sunday, the fourth season of TV's best blood-splattered, heaving-breasted, gloriously costumed fantasy drama is back. What will be the fate of the surviving Starks? Who will give Joffrey the good beat-down he deserves? So many unanswered questions! Although real answers would require reading the Game of Thrones books or watching spoilers, we're able to offer a few predictions based entirely on characters' hairstyle evolutions.

Daenerys Targaryen: Currently the baddest dragon mother in town, she started out as an innocent girl, which was reflected in her soft, frizzy hair. When she was forced to wander the Red Waste in Season 2, her messy ponytail looked like it had lost a fight to a Weedwacker—an emblem of her loss of power, hope, and access to regular baths. By the end of Season 3, she had polished waves and intricate plaits: She was back in control of her tresses. Will control of Westeros be next?

Margaery Tyrell: She’s slinky. She’s manipulative. She’s on a serious power trip. Margaery, like her hair, is dangerously calculated. Every tendril is always exactly where it needs to be, and based on that enormous Marie Antoinette updo in the Season 4 trailer, perhaps her growing political influence is going to her head. On Thrones, the more power, the more hair.

Ygritte: Stringy, flat strands in the early seasons; a glossy Victoria’s Secret blowout in the Vanity Fair feature; and healthy, beachy waves in the latest trailer. Our reading of her increasingly voluminous hair is that this wildling has a very important role to play in upcoming episodes.

Jaime Lannister: His hand is cut off. And now, so is his hair. Maybe it’s indicative of a more restrained, rational Jaime. Maybe it means a fresh start for the battered Kingslayer. Or maybe he just needed a trim.